Preview: The Rolling Stones in Pictures, Zebra One Gallery, London

Black and White photography and the Rolling Stones seem to go together. The collection of Raj Prem contains a terrific visual record of an era now past but remaining a legend of rock and roll history.

Well, walk through the door of Prem’s Regent’s Park flat-cum-studio and one thing is clear: this man loves the Rolling Stones, and photography. Exile on Main Street is rocking out of the speakers, and on a wall in front of me is a beautiful sepia-toned print by Michael Joseph of the debauched Beggars Banquet set-up, vestigially different from the one that appeared on the 1968 album’s inner sleeves. To the right is a clutch of black-and-white photographs of the Stones by Michael Cooper, including one of Cecil Beaton in teensy shorts snapping Keith Richards by a pool in Marrakesh in 1967, and another, by Dominique Tarlé, of Keith, Anita Pallenberg, Gram and Gretchen Parsons lolling in front of an ornate mirror at Nellcôte, the villa on the Côte d’Azur where the Stones recorded Exile on Main Street in 1972. At Richards’ feet is “the Telecaster Eric Clapton had sent Keith that morning”, Prem tells me in his public school accent; his thick black hair, skinny jeans and cool cardigan belying his mid-fiftyish years. Prem knows his guitars: in a corner of his cluttered room is an original Epiphone Casino, from 1962 – “it’s the same model played by Keith Richards and John Lennon. Exactly the same. I bought it for a song when I lived in Cirencester in the early 1980s. I think it used to belong to Steve Winwood – he lives near there.”

An exhibition of photographs, ‘The Rolling Stones Come to NW3’ is at the Zebra One Gallery, 1 Perrins Court, London NW3, May 1-14

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